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In past programs, we have introduced the reasons why the U.S. military must retire the early models of the F-22: there are a total of 32 Block 20 versions of the F-22 that do not have combat capabilities. Not only do they lack the ability to launch weapons, they do not even have the potential for continuous improvement, and the cost of using them to train pilots is too high. The annual operating cost of each aircraft just for training F-22 pilots and equipment testing is as high as 15 million U.S. dollars. It takes almost two years to consume a Xiaolong Block 3 fighter, and the U.S. Air Force spends 4.85 U.S. dollars each year, which is enough to purchase 4 F-35s. For the U.S. Air Force, the F-22 is still the highest-end combat power, especially when it is used to fight against the Chinese Air Force. It stands to reason that the U.S. Air Force is in great need of money now, including the development of the next generation.fighterNGAD, and the huge operating costs of the F-35 fighter jets. So can the US military not throw away these 32 old F-22s? The answer is no. Whether the US Congress approves the retirement of the F-22 is not up to the US Air Force, but also depends on the opinion of the US Congress Accountability Office.

According to the U.S. Congressional Government Accountability Report, the U.S. Air Force cannot retire this batch of F-22s now, because this will lead to additional operations, training and testing tasks for the combat-capable F-22s, and bring unpredictable destructive consequences. What does this mean? That is to say, even though the 32 F-22s cannot fight, once they are retired, the pilot training and equipment testing tasks they are currently responsible for will be transferred to the 150 or so F-22s responsible for fighting. If the Block 30/35 version of the F-22 is to add such tasks, it will inevitably lead to serious airframe losses and increased operating costs. In the words of the U.S. Congressional Government Accountability Office: "Retiring old F-22s will save the cost of not flying Block 20, but it does not take into account the increased operating and maintenance costs of other aircraft."

Why did the US military encounter this situation? The real reason is that they lack a combat trainer aircraft similar to China's L-15 (Trainer 10), and need to use such an expensive aircraft as the F-22 to perform 90% of the pilot's initial training tasks. The solution given by the US Air Force at the time was that they could reduce the training time of the F-22. General Mike Holmes, commander of the Air Force Air Combat Command, once said that the training time of pilots on the F-22 could be shortened from 40 months to 22 months.

If no changes are made, the number of F-22s capable of performing missions will be further reduced. Officials from the U.S. Air Combat Command said that due to availability issues such as maintenance, a combat squadron typically has a total of 24 Block 30/35 aircraft to ensure that there are 12 mission-capable aircraft at a given time. If the Air Force reallocates Block 30/35 aircraft to training units to make up for the loss of Block 20 aircraft, each combat squadron will have a total of only 18 aircraft, and only 9 will actually be able to perform missions. In other words, of the total 150 combat-capable F-22s of the U.S. military, only about 70 of them will be able to take off and fight in the future, and this will be further reduced to only 50 that can perform combat missions in the future. This is unacceptable to the U.S. Air Force because the Americans judge that China'sJ-20The number has exceeded 200 and is still increasing at a rate of more than 80 per year.

Here we should pay attention to one point, it is not that the US Air Force does not understand the serious consequences of retiring the F-22, but that they are willing to bear such a loss of combat effectiveness. The US military's plan is to resume the adoption of increasing the strength of the F-15EX to reduce the maintenance and operating costs of high-end fighters. The US Air Force can only spare enough budget to promote the NGAD project in the future if it learns to save money. Now they seem to have to temporarily abandon the development of the sixth-generation aircraft, which has a more serious far-reaching impact.

In general, although the F-22 was once the pride of the US military, it is now too old. Not only is its serviceability seriously insufficient, but it also lags far behind the F-35 and J-20 in terms of situational awareness. It is unable to adapt to high-end air combat, and the US military dare not retire. We can only say that the US military is really in a difficult situation, but it will only get more difficult in the future.